News, Community, and Historical Thinking

Annual Meeting Retrospective in the February Perspectives

This month’s Perspectives on History, now in the mail and online, features a look back, through articles and photos, at the 127th annual meeting in New Orleans. A photo essay by Chris Hale displays some of the best images captured at the meeting, and many more are available now for tagging and viewing on our Facebook page.

AHA President Kenneth Pomeranz makes the case for going to the next annual meetings in his column. Beyond the benefits of hearing new ideas and seeing old friends, there’s a new sense of urgency at these meetings due to transformations in the job market, publishing, research, and the political environments. The big issues are best discussed at the big meetings, Pomeranz argues.

James Grossman, executive director, and Elaine Carey, vice president, Teaching Division, take up the recent report by the National Association of Scholars that criticises professors at two Texas universities for an alleged over-emphasis on race, class, and gender. A shorter version of their column was also picked up by the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the discussion has continued online with a blog post authored by Pomeranz.

Robert Townsend reports on a study from Ithaka S+R that challenges historians to re-examine their research practices in light of new technologies. We’d like to take this opportunity to link readers to a Perspectives forum on history and the digital image, which includes articles by researchers who have done just that.

There’s much more about the meeting, the prizes awarded, and the discussions that followed, available online now, and we’ll be highlighting some of the issues’ features throughout the month.